A strange Memorial to a strange war that has all but been forgotten, this Memorial is near the far more famous Vietnam "Wall." Although the Korean War produced a number of casualties close to Vietnam--over 40,000--few Americans remember very much about it. While it is difficult to say that we "won" the Korean War, which never really ended, South Korea has remained free.

The Korean War is remembered by many events--the stunning victory at Inchon conceived by General MacArthur being the best known military achievement, although the 1st Marine Division's hard-fought withdrawal from the Chosen reservoir--"frozen Chosen"--is also recalled vividly by many veterans. The Korean war produced what some have called the first modern Hollywood antiwar film, "The Bridges at Toko Ri," with big-names stars Grace Kelly, William Holden and Frederick March. Another obscure but telling film is "The Rack," one of Paul Newman's first films, in which he plays a returning soldier who had been "brainwashed" by communist torturers while a prisoner. The most talked about event of the war was President Truman's firing of General MacArthur for insubordination, a move endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of whom, General Omar Bradley, said to Truman, "Mr. President, you should have fired him a long time ago." General MacArthur, called by one biographer "An American Caesar," was played very effectively in the film, "MacArthur," by Gregory Peck. MacArthur was an American original.

One historian of the Korean War has called it "the forgotten war." A student asked in class recently, "Why is information about the Korean War suppressed?" I'm not sure of the answer, except to say that it never really ended--a cease-fire was effected, and truce talks went on for a long time, but there was never any real end. The demilitarized zone is still in place and tension between North and South Korea remains high. Finally, the Korean War was in effect superseded by the Vietnam War, which, because of television and the antiwar movement as well as the length of the conflict got a lot more attention. Total US casualties from all causes in the Korean War were about 50,000 killed and over 100,000 wounded.